Islamic Cairo & Khan Al-Khalili – Saturday 21 April 2007

Today Chris and I took the boys around Khan Al-Khalili and then to Islamic Cairo.

I was originally going to go with them to Alex but I wanted to go to Khan Al-Khalili to get some more tunic style tops to take on safari and to wear in upper Egypt.

We picked Chris up from Mohandiseen (Wesley didn’t want to come so Chris, Colin, Aidan and I went with Sharif driving) then went to Khan Al-Khalili. We walked around for a while but didn’t buy much. I got 2 tunic type tops. The first one was ridiculously expensive and the second one was really cheap. Guess it kinda evened out. Aidan and Colin bought some small trickets and Chris got a Sheesha pipe – just a small one.

I was looking for a backgammon set. I’d originally planned to get a chess set but decided backgammon was more Egyptian so went looking for one of them. They were quite expensive and when we ran into Ahmed (driver man) he said he could get me one much cheaper from some where else. So he’s going to find me one and when I get back I will pay him for it.

Ahmed also showed us to Beit e-Suhaymi. It’s a traditional style family mansion. You walk through a tunnel into a beautiful courtyard. The walls on one side of the courtyard (on the second level) are wooden, but really finely woven wood – like fine lattice work. Apparently back in the day a family would bring their son to meet the father of the potential bride. The boy would be stood in the courtyard and the prospective bride (and no doubt her sisters, mother etc) would all be up on the second level looking through the lattice. They could see the guys downstairs but the guys couldn’t see them.

I didn’t see that much of it because I was talking to Ahmed trying to fix the Alex trip we had planned for Sunday. Ahmed assumed I was going to, but it is just going to be Aidan and Colin. This made the prices change and caused all sorts of dramas. I’m sure I told Ahmed exactly what I wanted – even wrote it down – typed it too… still confusion. Ahmed’s English is so good I think it’s just a planning and lack of attention to details issue. Very frustrating though.

That all sorted we got back in the car and went to Bab Zuweila. This is the only remaining southern gate of the old medieval city of Al-Qahira. They used to do executions in front of the gate.

We climbed to the top of one of the towers in the gate. It was quite a ways and very close quarters in a spiral staircase. At one point it was completely pitch black. The view from the top was weird. You’d expect to see the city laid out before your eyes given we were right in the middle and about 6 stories up. What we didn’t expect to see was that the rooves of all the buildings as far as the eye could see were COVERED in rubbish. It was like looking out at a rubbish tip with the occasional bit of brickwork identifying where one building left off and the next began. It was appalling – just rubbish everywhere. It couldn’t have all ‘blown’ up there from the street. Some of it, or maybe even most of it must have been deliberately chucked onto the roof – either onto the roof of your neighbour or onto your own roof. It was gross.

We were starting to get pretty tired but we decided to see the last thing on our list – the Citadel of Ibn Tulun. It Cairo’s oldest, intact, functioning Islamic monument. We went in and had to get little slippers put over our shoes so we could walk around inside the mosque. We took some nice pictures and walked around. It was really quiet. A group of four Spanish tourists were also looking around and other than that we were it.

Aidan wanted to get a cartouche of his name – it’s a pendant for a necklace with your name spelt out in hieroglyphics. He got silver with the hieroglyphics in gold. It’s going to look really good. He ordered it today and Sharif (driver man) will go pick it up tomorrow.

By now we were pretty buggered so we just headed home. We decided to go out for dinner to a place called Grand Café. It’s right on the Nile and serves mains but also a load of Egyptian dips and finger food etc.

Chris joined us for dinner and he and Colin both had Sheesha. Sheesha are traditional water pipes used to smoke fragrant tobacco. They both ordered apple (the most popular). It doesn’t smell as bad as normal smoke, but I’m still not a fan.

It was a really nice night though. We ordered a range of dips, ta’amiyya (felafels) etc and a pizza just sitting round watching the Nile go by.